The Danish collective follow 2009's 'Performing Parades' live set with this, their third studio album and first for the legendary 4AD label. After evolving from an electronic to a more orchestral sound on their second album 'Parades', on this release they try something new yet again. Now bolstered by the addition of multi-instrumentalist composer Peter Broderick, they have experimented with shorter, more melodic song structures, resulting in a more pop-oriented record this time out.

Feb 2010

Magic Chairs, Efterklang’s third full-length album (and their first on their new home 4AD), is the most ‘band-like’ to date. Where bands like the Beatles, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Talk Talk and Soft Machine started with short pop songs before moving into more extended forms. Efterklang’s trajectory has been in the opposite direction: their early material employed the longer forms, shapes and sounds of classical music. Magic Chairs is the closest they’ve got to a straightforward album of songs, with quirky rockers such as ‘Scandinavian Love’ and the cinematic ‘Modern Drift’.

Returning to Denmark in the spring, the band went to the Feedback Recording studio in Aarhus, to record basic tracks together as a band - a traditional way to make rock albums, but a novel experience for Efterklang. They returned to Aarhus three times in the summer to develop the tracks further. Back home in Copenhagen they completed the tracks, adding final vocals, orchestral overdubs and Brauer’s trademark electronics and processing.

Yet Magic Chairs is far from conventional. Though each track, from the brisk ‘I Was Playing Drums’ to the moody, string-driven ‘Natural Tune’, sounds quite different to the others, the album is full of the restless energy and sonic ingenuity that made Tripper and Parades so memorable. But ultimately it’s good pop music, and it seems clear that the new approach to songwriting and recording has brought Efterklang’s instinctive tunefulness to the fore.

• Paste - "Efterklang has casually drifted from the more overtly classical structures of its earliest work toward tighter rock songs rendered with the elegance and precision of cut glass."